GoKawiil
Tech News
MapQuest declined to rename Lake Ontario to 'Lake America' despite a Trump executive order pushing the change, while Google Maps updated its listing to comply. The decision triggered a surge in downloads, pushing MapQuest to No. 4 overall on the U.S. App Store and No. 1 among navigation apps, with usage spiking 50 times above normal.
MapQuest announced it would not rename Lake Ontario to 'Lake America' despite a Trump executive order directing federal agencies to update the name. Following the decision, MapQuest's iOS app jumped to No. 4 among all US App Store apps and became the top-ranked navigation app, with hundreds of thousands of new downloads and usage climbing to 50 times normal levels.
After Google renamed Lake Ontario to align with President Trump's push to call it 'Lake America,' MapQuest publicly refused to make the same change on its maps. That stance went viral on social media, driving MapQuest's mobile app to the top navigation app spot on Apple's US App Store and into the top ten overall, with strong gains in Canada as well.
Android Auto ships with roughly a dozen app icons on its home screen by default, including tools like Adobe Acrobat and IFTTT that most drivers will never use behind the wheel. Users can trim this list and rearrange it by going to Android Auto's Customize launcher settings, keeping only essentials like navigation, calls, messaging and media playback.
A widely discussed Hacker News post argued developers should favor GUIs over terminal user interfaces (TUIs), sparking pushback from commenters who claimed TUIs are superior because they're keyboard-driven. The author counters that keyboard-driven design isn't exclusive to TUIs, pointing to guidelines like GNOME's HIG that explicitly require GUIs to support full keyboard navigation.
Google Pixel 11 owners are reporting that Immersive Navigation, Google Maps' 3D route-view feature, disappears after upgrading from older Pixel or Android devices, both on the phone and through Android Auto. Because the feature was rolled out server-side rather than through an app update, affected users cannot restore it themselves through settings or reinstalling the app.
Google Maps users on Android Auto are reporting that color-coded traffic lines have disappeared from their car displays, even though the same trip shows normal traffic data when viewed directly on a phone. Several affected users trace the problem to the recent rollout of Google Maps' Immersive Navigation interface, which added 3D buildings and more detailed road visuals, though the server-side nature of that rollout makes the exact trigger hard to confirm. Switching to Overview mode or rolling back Maps updates offers partial workarounds, but neither fully restores normal functionality.